Video sharing services have become prolific on the internet as connection speeds have increased giving consumers the ability to upload their own personal videos. Most video sharing services act strictly as an intermediary, for example, they give the user a forum to display the user's version of a video. The video sharing service can then host the user uploaded video allowing other users on the internet the ability to watch the uploaded video.
Some videos on video sharing services have greater popularity than others. Some of the popular videos can go “viral” and attract millions of people to watch the content. A viral video can generate notoriety, generate website traffic and in some instances generate revenue to the user who uploaded the video. Because of these and other benefits, often times viral videos are duplicated and uploaded multiple times by other users.
When users of a video sharing service search for videos that have gone viral, often times the search results contain many duplicates of the same content. This can result in a poor experience for a user searching for a viral video.